LITMIR.BIZ

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What had she turned into? Someone unrecognisable.

      She huffed a small unamused laugh. ‘Surely you don’t mean to confuse lust with love, Alix? I thought you were more sophisticated than that?’

      His face flushed at that but it didn’t comfort Leila. She felt nauseous.

      ‘Look,’ Alix said tersely, ‘I know that you’re probably a little hurt. The fact is that the woman I choose to be my Queen has to fulfil a certain amount of criteria. We respect each other. We like each other. We have insane chemistry. Those are all good foundations for a marriage. Better than something based on fickle emotions or antipathy from the start.’

      Something dangerously like empathy pierced Leila when she thought of what he’d told her about his parents’ marriage.

      And then she thought of his assessment of her being a little hurt, and the empathy dissolved. The hurt was all-encompassing and totally humiliating. The last thing she wanted was for him to suspect for a second how devastating hearing that conversation had been.

      ‘You never even told me you were so close to regaining your throne,’ she accused.

      Alix’s jaw was hard as granite. ‘I couldn’t. Only my closest aides know of this.’

      ‘So everything—the whole trip to your island—was all an elaborate attempt to throw your opponents off the scent? And what was I? A decorative piece for your charade? A convenient lover in the place of the last one you dumped so summarily?’ Leila laughed harshly and started to pace. ‘Mon Dieu, but I was a fool, indeed. Two times in a row now.’

      Alix sounded harsh. ‘I am not like that man, and you were not a fool.’

      Leila’s gaze snapped back to his, but she barely saw him through her anger. ‘Yes, I was. To have believed for a second that a trip like that was spontaneous.’ She recalled something else about the conversation she’d overheard and gasped. ‘You had someone take those pictures of us, didn’t you?’

      Alix flushed. He didn’t deny it.

      Leila shook her head and backed away from him. The tender shoots of something that she’d been frantically trying to ignore finally withered away. She’d thought they’d been sharing intimate moments alone...he’d led her to believe they were alone on the island. She’d bared her body and soul to this man and he’d exploited that. She had to protect herself now.

      She needed to drive him away before he saw how fragile she really was underneath her anger.

      She affected nonchalance. ‘To be perfectly honest, Alix, I used you.’

      * * *

      I used you. Alix reacted instantly, with an inward clenching of his gut. Pain.

      An echo of the past whispered at him—another woman. ‘I used you, Alix. I wanted back into Europe and I saw you as a means to get there and restore my reputation.’

      He went cold and hard inside. ‘Used me?’

      Leila nodded and shrugged lightly. ‘I wanted to lose my virginity but I’d never met anyone with whom it was a palatable prospect...until you walked into the shop.’

      Her eyes were like hard emeralds.

      ‘It was only ever about that for me, Alix. And excitement—I won’t deny that. My mother was over-protective, but now I’m finally free and independent, and I’m not about to shackle myself to some marriage of convenience because you deem me a suitable candidate for being your bride and the mother of your precious royal heirs.’

      A mocking expression came over her face.

      ‘I’m annoyed that you used me for your own ends, but that’s the extent of any hurt. And surely you don’t think you’re the first rich man to invite me up to his suite for a private consultation?’

      She didn’t wait for a response.

      ‘Well, you weren’t the first, and you probably won’t be the last.’

      Alix’s vision blurred for a moment at the thought of Leila going into another suite, smiling at some man, taking out her bottles. Getting under his skin. Concocting the perfect scent for him like a sorceress. Sleeping with him.

      Darkness reared up inside him. She’d used him. Just as he’d been used before. He’d vowed never to let it happen again. Yet he had. The evidence of such weakness made him feel bilious. He’d been prepared to woo her into becoming his bride. He’d been prepared to take her into his life, parade her as his Queen. Prepared for her to bear his children. The heirs of Isle Saint Croix.

      One thing broke through his mounting rage. ‘You could be pregnant.’

      The thought was repugnant to him now, when a couple of hours ago he’d thought it might be something used to persuade her to agree to marriage.

      Leila went a little paler, but then her chin lifted. ‘I’m not.’

      Alix wanted there to be no doubt. None. ‘How do you know?’

      ‘I got my period this morning.’

      Alix smiled humourlessly. ‘And I suppose you’d have me believe that if you were pregnant you wouldn’t come after me for everything you could?’

      Alix was aware of her arms dropping and her hands fisting at her sides. He felt nothing, though. Only a desire to lash out.

      ‘Your cynicism really knows no bounds. And now I have that train to catch. Please leave.’

      Alix took a step back and forced himself to be civil when he wanted to swipe a hand across the nearest glittering shelf covered in glass bottles and bring them all crashing to the ground. To crush Leila under the burning anger in his gut, forcing her out of this hard obduracy. Force her to be soft and pliant again.

      The desire made him feel disgusted with himself.

      He turned and walked out of the shop.

      It wasn’t until Alix reached his suite in the hotel that his brain cleared of its dark haze.

      He couldn’t even accuse Leila of avariciousness. There were a million other women who would have heard that conversation and used it to inveigle their way into his life, take everything he offered and more. But not her.

      The dark irony mocked Alix.

      He saw the rumpled sheets on the bed out of the corner of his eye—and something else. He strode into his bedroom and picked up the House of Leila perfume bottle, containing his signature scent.

      An image came to him of Leila in the bath, after they’d made love for the first time. He saw it as clearly as if she was in the room right now. The small sensual smile that had played around her mouth, her hand on her breast, a nipple trapped between her fingers. That smile scored his insides now like a knife. She’d looked satisfied. Mission accomplished. I used you.

      Acting on a rising tide of rage, Alix lifted his arm and hurled the bottle at the nearest wall, where it smashed into a million tiny shards and scattered golden liquid everywhere. And that smell reached into his gut and clenched hard.

      He lifted the phone and gave curt instructions that he and his entire team were to be moved to another hotel. And just after that call he got another one from Andres. The man was excited.

      ‘The polls are in and they’re all suggesting a landslide victory. The government is panicking but it’s too late. This is it, Alix. It’s almost time to go home. When you return with Leila on your arm—’

      Alix cut him off coldly. ‘Do not mention her name again. Ever.’

      There was silence on the other end of the phone before the man recovered with professional aplomb and went on as if nothing had happened.

      Alix listened with a grim expression.

      When the conversation was finished, staff appeared, scurrying to do

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